JAMISON FAMILY

Opening

On 8 October 2009, Bobby and Sherilyn Jamison and their six-year-old daughter Madyson left their home in Eufaula, Oklahoma, to look at land in the Sans Bois Mountains of Latimer County. They never came home. Eight days later their truck was found parked on a remote track with their wallets, phones, the family dog, and $32,000 in cash inside. Four years after that, hunters found the three of them dead in the woods about three miles from the truck. The cause of death could not be determined. Nobody has been charged.

Timeline

7 October 2009The family visits the property near Red Oak that they were thinking of buying.

8 October 2009Home security video shows Bobby and Sherilyn loading the truck. People who watched it describe them as moving slowly and oddly. They leave with Madyson.

16 October 2009Searchers find the truck on a hillside track in the Sans Bois Mountains. Inside are the family's wallets and IDs, their phones, $32,000 in cash, and their dog, starving but alive. There are no signs of a struggle.

2009 to 2013Searches find nothing. The case gets national attention.

16 November 2013Deer hunters find the skeletal remains of two adults and a child, about three miles from where the truck had been. Tests confirm they are the Jamisons. The remains are too decomposed for a cause of death.

Key figures

Bobby and Sherilyn Jamison. Sherilyn had written Bobby a long letter listing grievances, and relatives say the couple had talked about seeing ghosts and spirits in their home. Bobby had also sought a protective order against his father.

Sheriff Israel Beauchamp led the investigation and has said he thinks the family met someone they knew.

Physical and documentary trail

The sources: the security video, the truck and its contents, the site where the remains were found, and the sheriff's public statements.

What's missing is anything from the hours between leaving the truck and dying. No phone records, witnesses, or physical evidence from that stretch have been made public.

Things you might not know

• They were 44, 40 and 6. Bobby, Sherilyn and their daughter Madyson lived in Eufaula, Oklahoma.
• They were looking at 40 acres. The plot they were considering near Red Oak was about 30 miles from home.
• It was Oklahoma's biggest search. The eight-month effort that followed was the largest the state had mounted, and it found little.
• They were found in Smokestack Hollow. Hunters came across the remains in 2013 in a wooded area of that name, a few miles from the truck.
• Every theory remains open. Investigators and writers have considered a drug deal, a murder-suicide and outside attackers, and none has been proved.
• A book retraced the case. Jake Anderson's The Vanishing at Smokestack Hollow examines the family's last days.

Competing explanations

Murder. Someone the family knew, or someone connected to the cash, met them at the truck and killed them. The sheriff favours this. No suspect has been named.

Murder-suicide. Family stress, the letter, and signs of mental strain point to one parent killing the others. The remains can't show this.

Exposure after a crisis. The family walked into the woods in a confused or disturbed state and died of the cold. That doesn't explain why they left the cash and the dog behind.

Drugs. Rumours of drug involvement have circulated because of the cash. Investigators haven't confirmed them.

Later life of the case

The Jamisons are a staple of true-crime podcasts and online sleuthing, often with a supernatural slant from the family's talk of ghosts. The case is still open with the Latimer County Sheriff's Office.

Finding

A family drove into the mountains, left their money and dog behind, and died in the woods. The supernatural slant in retellings comes from their own beliefs, not the evidence. Murder is plausible and unproved, and the remains can't settle it.

What still will not resolve: how they died, and whether anyone was with them.